There was one ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ joke the team had to ‘clean up’ (exclusive)

Warning: This article contains minor spoilers from Deadpool & Wolverine.

Ryan Reynolds‘ Wade Wilson is one of the foulest mouths in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, rivaled only by his countless other variants roaming about the multiverse. His latest film, Deadpool & Wolverine, featured gags about star Hugh Jackman‘s divorce, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, cocaine, Bennifer (the other one: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner), soiling oneself, anal play, and the state of Marvel in general.

They don’t call him the Merc With a Mouth for nothing.

Director, writer, and producer Shawn Levy says he and the team had free reign to go as filthy and depraved as they wished in this R-rated entry to Disney’s superhero lexicon, but the filmmaker now tells Entertainment Weekly there was one joke they were asked to change.

“The general rule is to never punch down and to only take the piss out of people who can take it,” Levy says. “Certainly, when it was about Hugh in a meta way, Hugh was always the first to laugh uproariously. There was only one line in the entire movie that we were asked to change. We have made a pact, Ryan and I, to go to our grave with that line, but I will say that it was replaced with an equally dirty line of dialogue about Pinocchio shoving his face up Deadpool’s ass and starting to lie like crazy. I was like, ‘Ryan, that’s your replacement line in response to, ‘Can we clean it up?’ That’s Ryan Reynolds for you, audacious to the very edge.”

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Deadpool & Wolverine brought Wade’s R-rated antics into the arena of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with its July 26 theatrical debut. Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), an agent for the Time Variance Authority, plucks Wade out of his reality and asks him to join their multiverse organization. The rub is that his world is dying because of some specific mumbo jumbo that leads Wade to seek out a Wolverine from a parallel universe to save it. Now paired with this alternate variant of Logan (Jackman), the two embark on a cross-dimension odyssey involving a roster of A-list cameos and guest stars from past Marvel and X-Men movies.

Levy worked on the script with Reynolds, previous Deadpool movie writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and comic book scribe Zeb Wells. He emphasizes how Disney and Feige gave them “creative autonomy” in bringing Deadpool’s unique flavor to the typically family-friendly entertainment conglomerate.

“I really want to underscore that because, as an MCU fan, I remember hearing rumors about how much control directors get at Marvel,” the filmmaker says. “They were churning out so many hits. What is their magic inside that myth-making factory? I didn’t know any of that, and I probably went in with some apprehension, but this movie — it’s by far the biggest movie I’ve ever made — it may very well be the most creative autonomy I’ve ever had.”

Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in theaters.